EightyEight Minutes
by outtabreath
Summary: Josh and Donna on the Santos for President campaign trail. Complete.


**Author's Note:** Thanks again to **witchofnovember **to whom I bow and scrape. You are da woman!

**A/N 2:** Josh and Donna on the _Santos for President_ campaign trail. In no way related to the events of _Changing Conditions_…

**Disclaimer:** Yeah. I don't own them. Wellsatan does. I'm very bitter about this. A beer, Wellsatan? A BEER?

**~*~Eighty-Eight Minutes by outtabreath~*~**

He watches her all the time. She knows he does. In strategy meetings she can feel his eyes on her, searching for more than just her opinion or recommendations.

On the bus, at night, he sits away from her – across the aisle and back – but she can still feel him looking at her.

At rallies and briefings he is always the exact right distance away from her, his eyes fastened on her for the exact right amount of time as not to trigger anything other than her own agitation.

It unnerves and excites her. She's always on edge – waiting for _something_ to happen – for him to _say_ something. She's expecting it. Demanding it.

But he doesn't say anything, not anything that's not related to the campaign; and nothing happens that isn't related to work.

He stays quiet and watches her.

She knows several things. First, she knows that there have been a half-dozen times she's fallen asleep on the bus and has awoken to find herself under a blanket, a carefully tucked-in blanket. Second, she knows that there's a consistent and ready supply of her favorite soda and candy on the bus. Third, she knows that he's responsible - that he's watching her, watching _over_ her.

She hopes two things. First, she hopes that he is biding his time. Second, she hopes that he's growing as tired of the waiting as she is.

But she won't be first. She can't be first. She refuses to be first.

It's got to be Josh.

_Eighty-eight minutes._ She checks her schedule again, counts and crosses off and double checks and there it is_. Eighty-eight minutes_. Hers. She wastes two of them trying to figure out what she's going to do. She discounts a bath and a nap immediately. She has too much energy to expend, too much tension and lethargy and longing, too much of everything because she's waiting and she's being watched.

She pulls on shorts and sneakers and a t-shirt and heads to the gym. Eighty minutes left.

Josh is there on the treadmill and, first, she is amazed that he's working out. Second, she's pissed that he's there. She wants to turn right back around and walk out but refuses to because, damn it, she gets to work out too.

She nods at him, mounts the stair climber and puts on her headphones. She pretends to turn on the music.

She hopes that the time has come.

The mechanical sounds of the machines, steady, rhythmic whirring, fills the room.

Her eyes are fixed ahead, his are fixed on her.

And she snaps – she's tired of being watched and examined. She wants words. Now, with seventy-eight free minutes, she needs him to _say_ something.

"Stop!"

"What? Stop what?" he's startled – or acting startled.

"Stop staring at me. It's driving me nuts."

"I'm not staring at you."

"Josh! You're always staring at me and I can't stand it anymore."

"No, I'm not," he protests, then begins the dance of misdirection, "Hey, Donna? You're not listening to music."

She wrenches the silent headphones off her head and stares him down, even though her legs are shaking and her heart is racing.

He stares right back. He's had lots of practice.

Finally, he speaks. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" She's still climbing and he's still walking on flat ground.

"For staring at you. I don't mean to."

It's a start, a good start. At least he's acknowledging some things. "Then why do you do it?"

He shrugs and she's angry, really angry because he's shutting down again.

"That's not an answer, Josh."

"It's the one I can give you."

"No," she spits out, more coldly than she had expected, "it's the one you'll allow yourself to give." She's panting and her pulse is speeding and she fervently wishes that she could blame it entirely on the machine.

His eyes soften and he sighs.

She ignores him, does a good job of it. Anger is carrying her. "Don't do this again, Josh."

"Do what?" He genuinely seems puzzled and she thinks that he's gotten really good at this acting thing.

"Let me walk away again without telling me."

"Are you quitting again?" he asks, smirking; he doesn't ask what he's supposed to be telling her and that makes her both angrier and happier.

"Idiot!" She shouts, surprising both of them. There's a moment of stunned silence and she wants to cry but won't.

"I see you've added some choice words to your vocabulary, Donnatella."

"Stop," she says savagely. "Stop now before I can never look at you again."

He blinks and his smirk fades by degrees until he's frowning; anger is catching. "Would you stop climbing?" he demands, indicating the machine.

"Only if you stop walking in place," she retorts, stopping the machine even as he stops his.

"Nice metaphors. Sam would be so proud," he states, climbing off the treadmill.

"Stop changing the subject, Josh." She refuses to climb down; she enjoys towering over him.

He tips his head back to look at her. "Donna, seriously, I'm not even sure what the subject is."

"That you stare at me."

He blinks slowly, his eyes are flat and blank and it scares her a little, scares her that he is able to do that so easily; "Okay," he says slowly. "You want to talk about that."

"I want to talk about why you do it, Josh."

His eyes flicker over her face and she sees the blankness begin to slip. Then, and only then, does she get down off the stair climber.

They stand facing one another and she's got her hands behind her back and wrapped around the pole of the machine she's just vacated. She's not sure if she's going to rip it out and beat him over the head with it or if she's using it to stand upright. She figures she'll know soon enough.

His hands are behind his back, too, and she wonders if he's hanging onto the treadmill and if it's to keep himself from lunging at her and her knees buckle at the thought and she knows why she's hanging onto the damn metal for dear life.

They're breathing hard, both from emotion and exertion, and neither one is speaking; it's a standoff and they are in their new pattern: waiting and watching.

Several moments tick away before Josh speaks first. He doesn't say the right thing – but then he almost never did: Just in the snow before a ball, by his words in a book, in his smile by a hospital bed, in his gesture in a makeshift office. Four times in eight years. She really wasn't expecting him to say the right thing again.

"You hate me," he pronounces.

"No, but I could learn how to and that scares me, Josh. I never thought I could learn how to do that," she corrects and she tightens her hold on the metal.

He drops his head to the side and frowns and his forehead crinkles in a way that she shouldn't find alluring. "You don't hate me?"

"Not yet."

"Why don't you hate me?"

And it becomes clear. What he's saying is that he wants her to hate him – it's so much easier for him to deal with.

But she's tired of making things easy for him; she wasted eight years taking care of him and easing his way. She needs things to be difficult for him now, needs to know that he can forge his way through the hard stuff, too.

"Why should I hate you Joshua?"

He blows out a breath. "Because I never treated you the way I should've."

"And how should you have treated me?"

"As if you were important to me, because you were Donna."

"Were?" she asks.

"Are," he corrects, "and very."

She lets out a breath and waits.

"I'm sorry," he says and she looks at him – just looks – and sees the exhaustion, sadness and regret; sees the hope and lust; sees the pride and longing. He lets his eyes speak for him – lets her see everything he's held back and pretended didn't exist.

"I'm sorry, too," she says, and it surprises her – but she means it.

"For what?" he questions, holding her gaze; there is confusion now is his eyes, too, and she realizes that he is, in this moment, genuinely perplexed. "You had to leave. I know that. I was pissed, but I understood. I got over it. I missed you but didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. I thought that's what you wanted, for me to be gone."

"Josh," she expels his name, wondering how such a smart person can be so stupid. "I didn't want you gone, that's not what this was about. I did have to leave and I'm not sorry for that. I'm not even sorry for how I left because, seriously, you didn't leave me any choice."

He furrows his forehead and she still shouldn't find it alluring. "Are you getting to the apology part anytime soon, Donna?"

She smiles because, finally, she isn't furious at him. She's figured out things and she knows what she needs to say, too. "I'm sorry that I was just as big of a coward as you were Josh. I'm sorry that I didn't have the guts to tell you that you were – are – very important to me. That's what I'm sorry for."

"I was a coward," he acknowledges. "There was no real good reason, just my own fears that I would screw this up if I tried and you pushing me away when I tried to do something."

"I was always good at finding excuses."

"Yes, you were. And good at finding gomers and stopping me when I was ready."

"You weren't ready," she shoots back. "Not in Germany."

"I was, too. I was ready and you knew I was and you sent me home."

"You _weren't_ ready and I sent you home because _I _wasn't ready to make a huge mistake. I wasn't going to let you make a huge mistake. Things still needed to change, Josh."

"And now they have." He says it like a statement, but she can hear the hint of a question in his words.

She nods, regarding him steadily. She really doesn't have anything else to say to him and it surprises her; she thought it would take more talking and listening than this but, for now, this is enough. More than enough.

He sighs. "We are really fucked up, Donna."

"Were," she gently corrects.

He looks at her and she sees the glimmer of the Josh she met in New Hampshire; the worries seem to have fallen away from him and he believes the world is his to conquer and claim. His arms shift and he moves his hands out in front of him, palms open and facing upward. She looks at them, his empty hands, and he pushes them towards her in supplication. He wants her to fill them like she once filled his life – may yet fill his life.

She lets go of the post, isn't even aware of losing contact with it. This is what she's been waiting for, been counting the minutes and hours and days for. With sixty-eight free minutes left, she's moving to fill his hands. She presses her hands into his and he stands still, waits for her, leans into the kiss as her mouth touches him first.

For a second, she wishes that the kiss will be bad – will absolve her from having to deal with this relationship altered beyond recognition.

But it's good. Unbelievable. She grabs him tighter, knows she'll never be able to let go again; she never did, really. His hands are on her ass and in her hair and she knows he's feeling exactly the same things she is: terror that she'll bolt – terror that she won't. It makes her giddy and sad and she molds herself to him and she forgets every scary feeling.

"Sixty-five minutes," she murmurs against his lips.

"Sixty-five minutes?" he murmurs back.

She pulls back, focuses on his lips. She's never seen his lips like this: swollen and wet, lips that have been plundered. She loves this, loves that she has yet to see many sides of Joshua. She wants to see them now.

"I have sixty-five free minutes left," she clarifies, watches in wonder as the meaning of her words infiltrates his brain and his face lightens and relaxes.

He takes a deep, shaky breath and fumbles in his pocket - handing her a key card. "My room's closer."

She looks down at the piece of plastic and raises an eyebrow.

"Donna," he whines, "do you really want me fumbling with this thing when we're on a time limit?"

She laughs, really laughs, for the first time in too long. She grabs the card in one hand and him in the other and starts pulling on him, then stops short. He runs into her and whimpers.

"The talking part isn't over," she clarifies, spinning and trying to look fiercely at him even as she starts dragging him along again.

"I would hope not," he says, smiling – dimples and brown eyes – "I always really, really liked the talking part."


End file.
